(Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect their privacy. Mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised. 18+)
For the first quarter of mine and Bill’s nine, or so, hours drive back to Fredericton, I reminisced about experiences I had with Jean and Alyssa. I thought about how they often confided in me. I thought about the possibility of being another person who was in their life who had rejected them, or let them down. I thought about their potential confusion. They were ignorant to the entirety of truth in it all. I thought about questions which must have ran through their minds at night when they laid alone in their beds. I thought about a lot of things. So much, I gave myself a headache.
Heavy thoughts combined with light sobbing here and there, made for exhaustive energy to be in. I had to close my eyes. I turned to face the interior of Bill’s car. I then got my coat to use as a pillow to rest my head on the console between Bill and I. I may be five feet, nine inches tall. I knew how to make myself small when I had to. My feet were touching the car door whilst the top of my head slightly touched Bill’s arm.
Bill felt it was a good time to stroke my hair as I had slowly drifted off to sleep. Listening to Nora Jones Bill had playing on his car’s speakers. An instant flutter came into my stomach the moment he touched my head. It triggered some horrific memories back to back. Inside my mind, I held a skeleton key which unlocked all three of my memories simultaneously. This drive was one hell of a roller coaster ride.
One memory was when my mother had explained to me that Bill would find reasons to touch her hand, or the small of her back, anytime they were alone together in our house. I wasn’t sure if I could believe my mum back then. When Bill decided to take advantage of my vulnerability in his car on the drive back to Fredericton, I knew my mother had spoken the truth.
The second thought took me back to 1999. My mother and Bill were having a secret affair behind my father’s back when I met Bill at my mother’s, and his place of work. I had no idea how long the affair had been. I had no idea they were having an affair in the beginning. I wasn’t interested in any of the details when my mother was acting like a school girl, on the phone with me. She excitedly explained her crush on Bill to me a few months prior to mine and Bill’s highly unexpected, highly intoxicated, rendezvous at the lighthouse in St. Stephen.
My mum confiding in me back then is a strong possibility for her resentment towards me to this day. I suspect in my mum’s mind, she confided in me, so, I stabbed her in the back. I had stolen her true love. This is not my truth. This may not be hers. I strongly suspect it is, secretly.
I didn’t make the connection as it relates to my father’s love, or lack thereof, towards my mum. I didn’t have the maturity nor knowledgeable counsel to do anything about my parents’ choices. All I said at the end of our conversation was, “well mum, if you’re not happy with dad, leave him. Do what’s best for you. I respect your choice.”
I’m not interested in knowing the details of my mother’s and Bill’s affair. Their story is for them to share, not for me to go any further with it. I also have absolutely no idea how my mum and dad had healed from my mum’s infidelity. Except to agree to use me as a projection screen to hate, which helps to keep their bond intact. Mutual hate builds mutual respect and codependency for a supportive mindset. People stay together when they know they are not truly happy by staying in some form of agreement. My parents decided to agree. I am “pain” for them.
During my mother’s affair with Bill, and a few months after moving to St. Stephen to work for my mother, Bill decided to kiss me late one night. Bill had decided to wait for the Dooley’s bar we were at to closed. We were both drunk and standing on a dock by the little town’s lighthouse. My children were being babysat by a local teen in a house that my parents had provided for me at the time. I knew about their affair when Bill kissed me. It was for that reason that I chose to tell my mother the very next day. I wasn’t about to hurt her in my mind, and yet, I did. Truth does hurt sometimes.
Have you noticed this toxic attraction pattern in my life? I had attracted different men with infidelity issues. A pattern can be a real bitch in life. Keep reading my story. You come to see my patterns as clearly as I do.
My mother lost her lid. “What do you mean he kissed you? Did you kiss him back?”
My mum was shocked as well as furious all at the exact same time. I was no longer a friendly confidant. I was the “It” girl all over again in her mind. I knew her reaction was going to be difficult for me to take. I was prepared for it.
“I didn’t exactly kiss him back. I didn’t exactly stop him either, I guess? I am so sorry mum.”, was my timid response to her intense glare.
My mother may be only five feet, three inches tall. She can also be quite the firecracker. “Good things come in small packages”; so does dynamite.
I did my best to explain that it was an unexpected experience on my part. I had no plans to talk with Bill. Let alone find myself on yet another dock, stretched out into the water, with a man I hardly knew. At that time, I was dealing with the loss of my first marriage. Albert cheated on me so I left him. I’ll touch on both my marriages soon enough.
After that dreadful day in the kitchen of my parents’ second home, I became very ill. I had ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and issues with one of my kidneys. During my seven day stay in the hospital, which was about two weeks after the kissing incident, my parents didn’t visit me. Bill and my babies were the only ones who did visit me. I didn’t even go on a date with Bill, nor kiss him again when my mother closed the business I had been helping her with. Bill agreed to take care of my girls for me. I had no one to help me.
My parents rejected my girls too. Liv’s and Laura’s father was in Ontario. I was in a bind and felt I had little choice other than to move in with Bill and John. I had nowhere else to go in my mind.
I’d been working on a contract deal in Saint John for my mum when I had fallen ill. Both my parents had kicked me and my girls out of their house. Neither of them would speak to me. I was out of the hospital with nowhere to go. Bill had offered to take us all in. Fourteen years later, we were divorced. Six years after that, Bill is driving me away from yet another cheater. Imagine that. Egos love repetition, mine included.
Bill was manipulative when he wanted to be. He could also be an opportunist when called upon. It seems I surrounded myself with manipulative, absent minded people. Thank goodness for the love of my children. They were, and still very much are, my people. I couldn’t wait to get back home to Liv on that day.
The final thought I had in those few moments had caused me to revert back into an upright position. As I stared absent mindedly out the window, my thoughts drifted to what was supposed to be a fun camping trip with my friend and her father, back in 1986. I was twelve years old at that time in my life. Sydney’s father had his own plans for me on that camp weekend.
Men and their wayward hands and penises for me, became more of an internal death sentence, than any mack truck would have been, had it hit me back when I was fifteen. I was being metaphorically poisoned over time.
And the journey continues…
(The first entry involving the Mack truck can be found on the last page on my website)
LivWithClairity 